POST HOLIDAY LETDOWN

A white Christmas is the dream of the holiday season, creating pictures of horse-drawn sleighs, holly, mistletoe, bells, choirs, and celebrating families gathered around the dinner table.

When our children were little, my wife and I loved shopping for the toys that Santa would deposit under the tree on Christmas morning. We would secretly "test drive" some of them. And I especially remember the ecstasy on our oldest son's face when he discovered the train platform secretly assembled in the basement or an off-limits room.

And, oh! the children's anticipation of the day.

They have long since passed that stage, though, and so have most of our grandchildren.

Although the song "Toyland" warns that once you "pass the borders of childhood you'll never return again," there's still enough youth and youthfulness left in the family to enjoy the childish excitement of opening presents.

Next, the holiday slips into the period of awaiting the arrival of the New Year and all its promises. The excitement is muted but the music doesn't stop, nor do the good feelings of the holidays.

Then, abruptly, it's over. The music stops. Reality regains its grip on life. Sounds, lights – the whole panoply of the holidays – are replaced by the bleakness of winter. Lonely evergreens can't distract from the bare limbs of deciduous trees.

Artists can find beauty in the winter landscape. And I'll admit to the appeal of fresh-fallen snow. Until humans despoil it with their tracks and their carbon deposits.

In one of the Christmas carols there's the wish that we could have Christmas the whole year around. We would welcome the tranquility of a world at peace, of course, with an abundance of tolerance and good feelings among the various tribes, religions, nations.

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